Most of the popular commercial sports bars are chalk full of weird ingredients, and taste chalky too. All you need to do to make your own is stock up on whole oats, coconut, honey, nut butters, nuts, and dried fruit, and you'll have everything you need on hand to whip up bars like these.
Some bars are baked, which tend to be lighter and crispier, while the unbaked ones resemble the chewy commercial type. The baked ones are more cookie-like, while the pressed ones tend to be sweeter and more intense. The unbaked ones (like these) need a lot more sticky binder than you’d expect to keep them from falling apart. If you’re worried about fat issues involved in 1 whole cup of peanut butter, cut the bars into small cubes…that’s all you need for a quick jolt on the trails anyway.
These bars are dense and satisfying, perfect mid- or post-workouts that are over an hour long.
All that aside, they’re just plain tasty and convenient. And they fit perfectly in laptop bags, glove compartments, and even dainty purses. Keep them on the counter for a week, or wrap them in foil and freeze for that three-week away hike.
Ingredients:
- ¼ cup almonds, roughly chopped
- 2 cups rolled oats
- ¼ cup dried apricots, chopped up
- ½ cup dried cranberries
- ¼ cup pumpkin or sunflower seeds
- ¼ cup sesame seeds
- ½ cup Red River Cereal or Bob’s Red Mill 10 Grain Cereal
- ½ cup honey (may use less, but with each reduction you risk the bars not holding together as well)
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 cup peanut butter
- 1 tsp vanilla
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350, and toast the oats, almonds, and pumpkin/sunflower seeds on a baking sheet until just golden and fragrant. (Watch carefully, they burn quickly!)
- Add the fruit and seeds to the oat and nut mixture. Mix well.
- Bring ½ cup water to a boil in a small saucepan. Add cereal, stir and remove from heat. Allow to sit for 2 minutes.
- Add peanut butter, honey, salt and vanilla to the pan and return to medium low, stirring often for 7 minutes. The mixture should start to shine and pull away easily from the sides of the pan. Stir constantly to avoid it sticking to the bottom. Do not overheat.
- Add the warm peanut butter mixture to the oat mixture, and combine thoroughly. Press very firmly into an 8×8 glass or metal pan (place a piece of foil that matches the size of the pan on top and press with your hands.) Leave to rest for at least 2 hours. Cut in 36 small squares and freeze indefinitely, or refrigerate/wrap and keep at room temperature for up to a month. Since the ingredients are all non-perishable, they will likely go stale before they go “bad.”
Nutritional information per 1/36th of a pan (one small square, fits perfectly in a bike bag!): 80 calories, 2 grams fat, 13.5 carbohydrates, 1.7 grams dietary fiber, 2.5 grams protein.
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